Leventhal, professor of church missions and ministries and director of the graduate school of ministry program at Southern Evangelical Seminary, told those gathered at SES' 23rd annual National Conference on Christian apologetics in Charlotte, North Carolina, on Friday that Jesus even appeared to people during the Holocaust.As an example, Leventhal shared the testimony of a Jewish man named Joseph who during the Holocaust was forced to work in a Nazi labor camp.

Joseph had sworn vengeance against his Lutheran neighbors who refused to help him and his family.

"He made a vow, a vow of only one thing: He would never stop hating his so-called Christian neighbors. He would always hate their Christian God; their Jesus would be his enemy as long as he lived," said Leventhal.

"His hatred for Christians and their Jesus grew with each passing day until one dark evening in his bunk, a night that would change Joseph's life forever, Jesus appeared to Joseph."

Quoting from Joseph's testimony, Leventhal recounted that on that night: "Jesus appeared to me. In the darkness of my hatred for Christians and their Jesus, Jesus appeared to me. I recognized Him in a split second, I knew who He was and His first words to me were 'Joseph, I love you. I died for you. You will survive.'"

That's Sotnak's immediate frame of reference. Now for Sotnak's comments.

His claim isn’t that people have dreams in which Jesus figures as part of the dream, but rather that Jesus, himself, appears in the dream. I suspect that Leventhal does not think that every dream involving Jesus counts as an appearance of him, though...Leventhal claims that there have been cases where people have converted to Christianity as a result of dreaming of Jesus. This may be true (though one story he tells of such a conversion has the ring of legend, I think), but it is not clear why Leventhal thinks these are cases of genuine appearance.

Speaking for myself, I find the testimony credible. But I have a different plausibility structure than an atheist like Sotnak. He doesn't bother to explain why he thinks that story has a legendary ring. The Holocaust is a central research interest of Leventhal's, so it's reasonable to think he relies on good sources. Admittedly, it would be helpful to know the source of this particular anecdote. Perhaps he cited his source at the apologetics conference, referenced in the article.

There is also something very strange about the whole idea of someone appearing in a dream. The whole notion treats dreams as having a real space within which actual existing things and people come and go.

I have no idea why Sotnak conceptualizes the relationship in those terms. Here's a different model: the character in the dream isn't Jesus directly; rather, the character represents or simulates Jesus. If Jesus wishes to communicate with someone in a dream, he produces a character who represents him.

To take a comparison, when I see someone on TV, is that a real person? Strictly speaking, the electronic image isn't a real person. Rather, the image represents or simulates a real person. As a philosophy prof., Sotnak ought to be able to come up with models like that.

There is also the question of how I would know that the person appearing was, in fact, Jesus. It won’t do to say, “well, it obviously was Jesus – after all, it looked like him.”

That's a very good question. It's a question that charismatic Christians need to ponder, since many of them lack critical discernment.

i) One possible explanation is subliminal telepathic communication. If Jesus is who he says he is, surely he has the ability to plant in the dreamer's subconscious the idea that this is Jesus. ii) Or in some cases a dream might be veridical because it contains information that the dreamer didn't know, which he can corroborate after he awakens.

iii) However, it also depends on the purpose of the dream. Suppose the value of the dream isn't evidentiary. Rather, suppose the dream functions as a stimulus to prompt someone who's indifferent or antipathetic to Christianity to seriously consider it for the first time, and to do so in a receptive frame of mind. Suppose the dreamer undergoes Christian conversion as a result of that process. His warrant for Christian faith isn't the dream itself, but the whole process that precipitating incident set in motion. In that case, it isn't necessary to verify that Jesus appeared to the dreamer.

iii) There's also the question about why someone would dream about Jesus in the first place. How often does Sotnak dream about Jesus? If that happens out of the blue, with no preparation, then that may require a special explanation. To take Leventhal's example, why would a Jew in a Nazi concentration camp, who hates Christians, have a dream like that?

Am I to think that Jesus didn’t appear to me as he likely would have looked in life, but rather as he is depicted in popular iconography (with strongly Caucasian features – perhaps with blue eyes?

i) To begin with, Sotnak seems to be pretty ignorant regarding artistic representations of Jesus. Sure, you have Aryan depictions. However, the Jesus in El Greco paintings is not a blue-eyed Jesus. Rather, he's a Spanish Jesus. Does the Jesus in Byzantine icons have blue eyes? What about Italian Renaissance paintings of Jesus? Unsurprisingly, they look…Italian! The iconography of Jesus varies from country to country. Artistic depictions of Jesus often take on the ethnic features of the country in question. Doesn't Sotnak know that? If not, shouldn't he bother to inform himself? For instance:

ii) More to the point, what would be the point of Jesus appearing to someone in a dream if he was unrecognizable to the dreamer? If Jesus does appear to people in dreams and visions, we'd expect him to do so in culturally identifiable forms. Sotnak's disdain for Christianity blinds him from considering the implications of the claim on its own terms. Sure, he doesn't believe that Jesus really appears to anyone, but considered as a hypothetical proposition, if Jesus were to appear to someone, it would be counterproductive to look like he did in the 1C–in the event that would be unrecognizable to the dreamer. A philosophy prof. should be able to consider the internal logic of the position, even if he rejects the position.

Then there is the question of why, if someone wanted to communicate with me, they would choose to attempt doing so in a dream, especially if we have reason to think they could do so in other, much less ambiguous ways. It is too easy to chalk a dream up to imagination.

It's odd that a philosophy prof. is unable to consider obvious counterexamples. For instance, if a culture puts great stock in oneiromancy, it might make sense of Jesus to exploit that entrée. If dreams are significant to some people, God might use that medium.

By analogy, if I were to find a note taped to my door that read: “You shall carve exactly six pumpkins this Halloween. Sincerely, Jesus” I would surmise that it had been written by a prankster.

But the problem with that analogy is that a prankster doesn't have access to our minds. That's quite different from the ability to insert yourself into somebody's dream.

2 comments:

I just did my devotions where I found myself thinking again and again about why God came to Laban in a dream. I mean why not just speak to him? Or communicate to him via something glorious like an angelic host? While something along the lines of Numbers 12:6+ may be in view, it is also possible that dreams are a convenient means of communicating a message to one and only one person - without others getting involved in the mix. That said...

> I have no idea why Sotnak conceptualizes the relationship in those terms. Here's a different model: the character in the dream isn't Jesus directly; rather, the character represents or simulates Jesus. If Jesus wishes to communicate with someone in a dream, he produces a character who represents him.

To take a comparison, when I see someone on TV, is that a real person? ... "

~ Here is an interesting story. I had a friend back in seminary who had told me about how she came to faith via a dream back in China. Basically she had met some Christians in college who shared their faith with her for a good season and she totally rejected it as a bunch of bunk and went on with life. Then one day a tragic event took place in her family that shook her up - although not her unbelief - and that night, when she went to sleep, Jesus appeared to her in a dream. I no longer recall the exact contents of dream, but do know that subsequent to the dream, she got up and prayed, accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Now many months later after hearing this, I had a thought - What did Jesus look like anyway? So I followed up and asked her. She told me "Oh. He looked just like the Jesus in the CRU movie. My Christian friends who had witnessed to me many months before - they had showed me the movie."

So basically she went through some season of being witnessed to where she out and out rejected Christianity. Then some whiles later, while living in unbelief, she had a dream where Jesus appeared to her, resulting in her conversion. And what did He look like? The Jesus of the CRU film. Basically this is God using a form that people can understand. Interesting...

In Him,~ RajP.S. One more thing coming out of my Laban contemplation - a bit of an aside but anyways - It seems that in the Bible, when someone who is a part of God's covenant community, has a dream, it is usually of something favorable - Joseph and Jacob immediately come to mind. And then there is also Daniel, Solomon, Paul...

On the flip side, when someone who is not a part of God's covenant community has a dream, it is usually an ominous warning. So we have our Abimelechs, Pharaohs, Labans, Nebuchadnezzars, Gideon's enemies, Pilate's wife...

It's not clear to me that Joseph's experience (assuming it's honest and veridical) was a dream. Just because it happened at night doesn't necessarily mean it was dream. Maybe Joseph was awake. Maybe Sotnak is assuming it was a dream when it actually wasn't because of his preconceived bias that supernatural events don't occur. It's not like there have never been post Biblical (professing) Christians who have claimed to be visited by Christ while awake and in their right mind.

Steve wrote: "For instance, if a culture puts great stock in oneiromancy, it might make sense of Jesus to exploit that entrée. If dreams are significant to some people, God might use that medium."

Exactly. In the case of Muslims, many Islamic cultures believe that God speaks to humans in dreams. So, from a Christian perspective, it wouldn't be surprising if Jesus appeared to Muslims to help nudge them in the direction of Christianity.

Sivraj Jarvis said, "may be in view, it is also possible that dreams are a convenient means of communicating a message to one and only one person - without others getting involved in the mix. "

Good point. Sometimes God may only want one person or only a few people to be persuaded of the genuineness of the supernatural event. If the person who had the experience acknowledged upfront that it was a dream, then the majority of those hearing about the story may more readily conclude it was just an ordinary dream without supernatural origin/source.